information. >> well not the first time. we have actually had firefighters from nevada when they have had earthquake in nevada and we have had firefighters from different parts of the world that have come. unfortunate but the good news is they come to work with us so they can better back in their own countries and they said we have been doing training with the japanese for almost a decade now and i think that hopefully will help them. i think they have learned a lot from us and we actually had one of our p.m. people who wept back to japan and taught over there. he learned a lot from them as well and how they operate. so the most important thing is approximately this type of training really it doesn't matter where you are from. when a country has a disaster or terrorist e.coli haven't it's about training to do the most good as quickly as you ca can. that's a shared at any rate that we all we all want to be good at. so this

international sharing of information and skills is really important for all of us to get better at what we are doing. >>fá absolutely. harold we really appreciate your time this evening. >> stay on line if you tonight mind we'll move on. we have another resource in menlo park. >> david i'mer with u.s. gs in menlo park on the line for us now. squiz.

>> they are taking in the estimate that they see from the inundays in japan is whether height on deep ocean buoy and the amplitude of the wave once it reaches hawaii. normally they try to keep that information to a minimum until they get into a 3 hour window from hawaii. that point they make a switch from a watch situation to a situation where the data indicates the wave height is substantial in hawai hawaii. so i'm sorry i don't have that information. maybe they have already made that determination. they are running these model for the entire pacific and forecasting the travel time as we speak i'm sure. >> david i know this is guess work here but how far l inland if a tsunami does hit the hawaiian islands, how far inland could the water reach just to give people an idea of how significant an event it

could potentially be. if you see 10 meter weight they probably many, many hundreds of feet and perhaps half mile with broad river valley. so it can be forecast and i'm sure that's what they are doing in the warning center right now.

>> hour and a half our 40 minutes ago or so and we weren't to stay on the air to bring people the latest information. you are looking at live picture from north japan that got hit by something on the order of a 23 foot tsunami. >> david with the u.s. dwchl s still on the hype with us and david, wanted to talk to you just a little bit about we have heard the differences in 8.8.

i think we are at 8.9 now for the earthquakement can you talk about how powerful that is? >> well, in terms of earthquake size when we talk about a magnitude 5 the ruptured area might be about half mile. the earthquake a 9.3 went on for around 600 miles. so earthquake magnitude are log rhythm. this earthquake will be calculating the accident of the rupture but it is going to be on the order of probably i would guess 300 miles or so. we have to do the calculation and seismologist will do that by modeling what look like and interpret the wiggle and estimate where the rupture started and what direction they are propagated. in terms of the displacement on the fault you will see calculation that is show the fault probably moved on the order of, oh, i

would say, in some cases up to 6 meters perhaps. those calculations will be done all night so you will see the magnitude estimate change probably for a few days at least continue to analyze the data more precise estimate. >> yes. >> you know david we have this list of we know that this earthquake will be rank as one of the most powerful in the last 100 years. as i lack at this list going back to 1900 chile at 9.5 in 1960. then another one in chile 8.5 in 1 1922. none of the top 15 in the last l 100 years were in northern california. or california at all for that matter. what does that tell us about the potential of an earthquake of this kind of siz size. 8.8 or 9 in california, anything? >> well the potential for earthquake of that size really doesn't exist in california.

most earthquake captain get that big in california because we don't have, the earthquake are vertical. the depth of the fault is not large enough to get enough surface area. you only get earthquake that big in california from eureka a up to the canadian border. cascade earthquake. thought that the cascade earthquake which lasso occurred in the year 1700 could give rise to a magnitude 9 earthquake. now obviously that would generate huge tsunami in cascade and that wave approximately would clearly impact all of the calf coast. we don't have a very good idea of the recurrent estimate but i don't want to diminish the impact of california earthquak earthquake. magnitude 7 earthquake in the bay area under on the hayward fault or san francisco section of the

san an degree asphalt would cause a lot of devastation so don't get hung up on the magnitude it's the proximity and size of the earthquake and impact on the urban environmen environment. small quake we saw today of 5.4 in the china border area can cause huge devastation if the building are poorly constructed. >> we are looking at pictures right now of the newsroom in tokyo and this is 240 miles away from the epicenter and we are certainly seeing things on our screen here just rocking and rolling in tokyo. that's quite a distance. 240 miles away. >> not surprising. the duration of earthquake of this size probably was on the order of minutes of strong shaking. generated large waves that at distance of couple hundred miles would have been substantial. low frequency, high frequency that you are used to feeling in california for small quake would have been

absorbed by the earth. but the long period waves would have been quite strong in tokyo and certainly hitting high-rise buildings. you. >> well david i'mer we appreciate your time. we want to check in with patty pepper with the bay area red cross. are you with us patty. >> i am. >> what is the red cross doing right now to help with this situation? >> we are at this point waiting to get word. probably be the morning before we hear from japanese red cross society but obviously they are looking for support and l likely they will, we will be prepared to help in whatever ways necessary. we encourage folks to visit our web site at red cross a area.org. we'll be posting information up there as soon as we have information available.

and certainly if folks are i wanted in making any rae response evident they can help us out through the web site at red cross area a.org. >> we'll have link open our web site to yours. is it almost a certainty that the bay area red cross or certainly the american red cross will have crew on the ground you almost certainly send people. >> it seams likely but i don't want to speculate. the process is we with wait for a request to come in from the japanese red cross society. just what i am learning about this as obviously you are as well. i would say that's very likely but we'll probably know more by first thing tomorrow morning. >> okay. patty pepper bay area red cross thanks for coming on. we appreciate it. >> you bet. >> appreciate it a great deal. >> we have been talking about the tsunami tsunami watch issued for hawaii. sandy is tracking that information for us very closely. what can you update us on. >> now that watch has been

upgraded to a warning. as a matter of fact the pacific tsunami warning center has now issued a wide spread tsunami warning. it is in effect for japan, russia, we are talking about taiwan, guam, indonesian, hawaii is included. jaws slew of countries. nuss. el salvador. costa rica a-chile, sea levels readings are confirm ago tsunami has been generated. it's a series of waves. first wave may not be the largest in between one wave to the next it could vary from 5 minutes to about an hour. and of course the threat can last for hours. once again hawaii is under a tsunami warning now. this excludes california, oregon, bc and washington. we are not under a watch or warning but certainly all the other areas surrounding the pacific ocean and nearby sea under a tsunami warning. >> sandy this can obviously change too as this progresses we'll know more so we need to be aware of that right. >> absolutely. the threat can last for hours. screws because

tsunami has been generated doesn't mean it gets there right away. the largest wave may arrive an hour later or 2 hours later. reason why they tip to monitor the sea level and continue to go track the estimated time of arrival. they have given estimated times of arrival for different country but keep in mind these are not exact time but estimated time of arrival and can vary quite a bit. >> all right. tsunami move at roughly 600 miles an hour over open ocean as we have heard. the u.s. gs david in menlo park still with us. let me ask you a question about the tsunami. are you still on, david? >> yes i'm still here. >> we thought we had dave may have gone away. he 30's i'm sorry. david, let me ask you about the tsunami. we know that in a hurricane most of the deaths approximately and injuries often come from the flooding that results. is that the same case in an earthquake and coastal areas does the

tsunami cause more damage and death than the earthquake itselfçó typically. >> it's hard to say in an area like japan where the building codes are good. l impact of the shaking level could be less than the tsunami. if you go into an area like china it could be just the opposite where the construction is poor. you can have wide spread collapse of buildings. so it's really difficult to make a blanket statement. >> okay. >> we do know, talk a little bit about the building codes in japan. they are some of the best in the world are they not. >> about modern building. no different than the united states. buildings that were put in after code was about reflecting the shaking level that are now understood to occur during earthquake are georgian the buildings will withstand shakeings. buildings built pre-earthquake code are collapse hazard and you can drive around san francisco and you can see unreinforced buildings. we are still trying to replace the bay bridge. so

having modern code doesn't address buildings that were erected pre-code. those buildings are of course at ris risk. >> david how long does it take l typically with earthquake of my magnitude, how long does it take for you folks to really nail down what the magnitude really is, where it was epicenter specifically and all the critical information. >> p.m. well, you know, the search for rapid information is conflicts with seismologist desire to get it right f.there weren't people pounding on our door we would probably take about two hours to study an earthquake of this size to try to get a pretty good estimate of the magnitude. >> we are the ones pounding on your door. >> just looking at the energy in the first few seconds of a seismic graph and come up with an estimate and that was 7. 9

but as we got more data available and saw more ways propagating around the world we did further analysis and realize it was bigger. those waves are still propagating around the world and l slowly going around the world. they will cross at the open opposite end and go around again. probably go around three times before they completely dissipate and people will study those earthquake to look at the the oscillation and earth shake and tomorrow and next week they will come up with even more precise estimate of the total magnitude. >> david obviously this is a very seismic active area and we do know that there was 7. 3 quake in the same region wednesday. is it going to be possible to tell whether that was in a four shock to this event. >> i think everybody would agree it was a fore shock. the problem with that is only 5

percent of earthquake are fore shock. really really not a very good determine natural and 7. 3 could be followed by a 7. 4 so that's where the statistics come from. the probability of 7. 3 is followed by 8.8 and probability is exceptionally small and not the kind of thing seismologist go out in front of the public and say.8 is current. we don't understand the process at this point. >> these are live pictures downtown tokyo. almost a couple hours after an 8.9 earthquake hit at 240 miles off the coast of northern japan. we have seen wide spread damage in a number of areas of japan. and including tsunami that has washed away cars. tore away buildings. fires at oil refinery. airport along the coast of japan. we believe this city is flooded out. runway flooded. terminal jet

way flooded as well. so we have seen significant l damage as a result of this earthquake. there is one person reported dead at the moment and several injuries in tokyo. hundreds of miles away from where this earthquake apparently was epicenter but we expect the damage, injuries and death toll to rise perhaps significantly. >> this quake struck at depth of 6 miles about 80 miles off the eastern coast of japan and this is an area 240 miles away from tokyo. >> thank you. i misspoke. >> the bls in tokyo swayed for more than half hour after the quake struck and as harold approximately explained that's a good sign that the be codes are working well. the buildings swayed release the energy there. that oil refinery that we have been showing you is very close to toke yochlt just 20 miles east of tokyo. >> look at the water rushing. >> this is very near the epicenter and you just see the boat just being pulled over.

>> as the camera pulls back i think what you will see if it does pull back, there are cars littering the water way there that got swept in as well. david you said that there will be after shock. significant after shock for days. maybe weeks or more. some of the after shock have been reported 7. 3, 7. 4. those are significant earthquake on their own but these after shock are just tremendous. >> it is certainly an effort to get the rescue evident upped way here as well. we have seen people on top of buildings. waving towels. airports we have seen flooded. you are looking at tv station now. both the tv station there very cholesterol to the epicenter where these images are from and then in tokyo as well. equipment moving. shaking in that building. quite dramatically. >> i'm sure for quite some time as you can imam with an.9 earthquake. 80 miles off the

coast of japan. 240 miles from tokyo and the shaking in tokyo was very violent. there have been reports of we saw pictures earlier of fires in some buildings. condominium tower. the cars i mention again there cars tossed into the water as a result of this tsunami. >> we did see a large parking structure in the area and approximately tsunami pushed through it looks like it just swept a lieutenant of the cars along with it as well. >> what happened is the tsunami just roared over embankment in the st where i these pictures are taken. washing cars, houses, farm equipment inland before rae versusing direction and carrying them back out to sea. flames seen from some houses. probably because gas pipe bursting and then there is also here an oil refinery ri on fire so officials will i'm sorry it's in another city where the oil refinery is on fire. so l emergency crew have

a lot to dweel in various parts of northern japan as they try to get a handle on exactly how the damage is. the only encouraging thing watch the water as it moves forward over the farm land is that this happened in day late hours with several hours of daylight left so they can get a better handle and quite frankly see what they are doing more readily. >> sandy is telling us that as of right now there is no tsunami warning watch or advisory for the west coast but that could change and right now cindy with the west coast tsunami advisory team on the line for us. can you tell us a little bit what the threat is and what you will be doing in the coming days. >> oh, sure. my goodness we are really busy. right now the entire west coast of the united states all the way up to most of alaska is in a watch. so you are actually under guidance as we speak right now. >> and watch. not a warning but a watch. >> a watch. yes. we have at least seven or eight hours

before the tsunami arrives and in between now and then we'll be disseminating the l information to put together a really good forecast model. >> while we watch for this, what do you do? what is the team doing specifically to prepare. >> well, we are measuring the tsunami and we are modeling it and we are issuing messages. we are calling emergency managers. we are talking to the media. we are trying to get the webb up to date as possible and i don't know. handful of stuff we are doing. >> where do things stand for hawaii right now. what are the model showing there. >> you know i don't have an actual forecast model of the amount of water they are expecting but they are in a warning right now. so they are clearing their beaches and clearing their l coastal homes and hotels. closest to the water. >> cindy with west coast advisory team. i know you will be busy this evening and next few hours. thanks for coming on we appreciate it.

>> absolutely. call back any time. >> thanks very much. >> what you are looking at here are pictures not far from the coast line of floodwaters tsunami water just rushing over farm land sweeping everything up with it. look at all the debris. see the roof top of a house there. you see cars p.farm equipment. all sorts of debris. now we are downtown tokyo. >> looking at a fire broken out there. this could we will be smoke that we are seeing from that large refinery fire which is burning about 20 miles east of tokyo. >> black smoke. >> that suggest an oil refiner refinery. >> so here we are about 2 hours after this earthquake roughly happened in tokyo and if you have friends or family in that area as we know many of you do living in that part of world obviously you are terribly concerned. know that at last report phone service has been interrupted. mobile phone service is out in many

instances. >> we heard from david are the u.s. gs in menlo park they have models based on the force of this earthquake and shaking it proud and it is speculative the modelckbwt there could be, they estimate, perhaps 1,000 deaths and upwards of 100 billion dollars in damage potentially. just potentially based on models that they have generated as a result of this 8.9 earthquake. >> that's lacking at just the quake alone